Anger Management Counseling Facts

Facts are what our eyes, ears and touch tell us and our filter is the way we think about and interpret these facts. Anger Management counseling facts are things that happen, and our filter is the lens that we use to see those things. Our filters are like glasses that we wear to see the facts. When things happen, we use filter that makes conclusions and evaluations about what happened. We don’t see events. We see what we thing of the events.

It’s like a camera filter. You can look through a camera filter and see the world in sepia, even though that is not really what the world looks like. But through your filter, that is what you see. And it seems real. You don’t think you re looking through a filter, you just think that is the way it is. But the reality is that the filter has totally changed the picture.

For example, you see a friend yawn when you are talking with her. That is a fact. But you interpret this yawn by thinking that she is bored with the conversation. You use a mindreading filter in determining that she is bored. You might even think that she is bored with you or doesn’t like you. The fact is that she yawned, but your filter is that she doesn’t like you. That’s the conclusion of your filter. Since you draw the conclusion that she is bored with you, you get your feelings hurt, act defensively, and say something rude to her.

Only later do you learn that she was up all night because she was sick and coughing. Her yawn had nothing to do with you. Your filter had caused you to make a false conclusion.

Or maybe you had a date scheduled with your girlfriend. Then she called and told you that she was sick and so she wanted to cancel the date. The fact is that she canceled the date. But your jump to conclusions filter might be saying: “She doesn’t like me. She’s bored with this relationship and that’s why she canceled.” or maybe even, “she’s going out with someone else tonight. That’s why she canceled. She’s cheating on me!”

That’s your filter talking. It is a conclusion that you came to based on facts. But it is not a fact.

In the end the assumptions in your filter often have almost nothing to do with reality. You take some facts and create a completely distorted picture out of it. We do this all the time. We make assumptions about the motives and feelings of others–often incorrectly–and then get angry because of this.

A few weeks ago my wife and I were driving the car. She turned to me and said, “Look at that guy’s lawn. It is so nice and green.”

What she said was a nice thing about our neighbor’s lawn. But what I hear was, “our lawn stinks. You are not taking care of our lawn the way that guy is.” That’s not what she said, but that is what I heard. That was my filter, the conclusion that I drew from what she said. And because of my filter, I got upset.

How do I know if something is fact or if it is my filter? A fact is something that you can see, hear, or touch. You know it is a fact if a video camera was watching and they would see what happened. A fact cannot be argued.

You filter, on the other had, is your opinion. It is the conclusions that you make based on some information. if your filter is distorted, it will lead you to trigger thoughts, which will lead you to anger.